


Things That Breathe

by excelgesis



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Blood Drinking, Historical References, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Vampire!Minho, human!jisung
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25819507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excelgesis/pseuds/excelgesis
Summary: Minho thinks Han Jisung is a solar flare—bright and beautiful in all the wrong ways.Minho thinks Han Jisung is porcelain—breakable in a way that has him itching to touch.Minho thinks Han Jisung is unbearably, devastatingly human—And for a monster like him, that’s the worst of all.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 19
Kudos: 145





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> hello! if you're here because you started reading the original 'things that breathe,' then welcome back! if you're new to this story, then welcome! i began this fic over a year and a half ago, but i started to feel like it was stagnating a little, and it wasn't going in the direction i had planned for it. i wasn't completely happy with the style, and it made updating really hard, so i decided to revamp it (no pun intended). the storyline is still similar in many aspects, but i really wanted to change up some things and breathe some more life into it (uhh no pun intended again). this will make it much easier for me to update in the future, so i hope you enjoy it from here on out ^^ 
> 
> much love,  
> chel

Minho hates himself, loathes himself through and through, and he wonders idly for the thousandth time if the endless stretch of immortality will ever lessen the sting. It’s always there, sitting like daggers on the back of his tongue: cold and sharp and unforgiving. 

It’s there now, barely muted by the screams of the audience and the EDM’s heavy bassline. All of his senses are on high alert, violin strings pulled taut and ready to snap: he can feel each article of jewelry cold against his skin, can see Hyunjin on his right and Felix on his left, can smell each distinct person in the club packed from corner to dingy corner—sweat and blood and alcohol and stale cigarettes.

And he’s dancing, moving the way the audience wants him to move, letting the bass pound through his chest where his heartbeat used to be. He tries to extend his glamour as far as it’ll go, and he knows that, coupled with Felix and Hyunjin, they’ll have everyone in the room under their control in less than thirty seconds. One simple performance, a bit of flirting with the crowd, and three lucky winners to be taken backstage. It’s too easy, and it makes Minho sick.

The music fades to a close and the audience erupts into wild shouts and cheers. Some scream for an encore, while others reach high above their heads to snap photos or wave handfuls of neon glowsticks.

“Are you having a good time?” Felix lets out a breathy laugh into his microphone when several girls in the crowd shriek and wave, frantically vying for his attention. He winks and blows a kiss in their direction.

“Now’s the moment we know you’ve all been waiting for,” Hyunjin purrs, running a hand through his bleached hair. It’s longer than Minho’s ever seen it, hanging nearly to his shoulders, and he knows Hyunjin keeps it that way for the audience alone. Minho’s not sure why he bothers—his glamour has always been the strongest of the three, and he can hold a handful of humans in check with minimal effort. It’s infuriating, really, how Minho had spent nearly a century choking on acidic guilt while Hyunjin had slipped into this life of blood-soaked debauchery like he was born for it. 

“Who’ll be the lucky winners tonight?” Hyunjin shucks off his leather jacket as he jumps from the stage, and immediately there are hands tugging at his shirt, running along his arms, pulling at his wrists. He grins and throws his head back, basking in the attention, and Minho doesn’t miss the way his eyes flash crimson at the scent of fresh blood.

Felix follows suit, jumping into the crowd and laughing at the hands on his face, his chest, his shoulders. Fingers run through his styled hair and catch in the belt loops of his jeans. The glamour is at its peak now, and the humans want a taste of Felix almost as badly as he wants a taste of them.

Minho is next, and he slides from the stage with a heaviness in his stomach. It’s his least favorite part of the night, and he strengthens his glamour so the crowd won’t see the dread in his eyes. His hair is styled up, away from his forehead the way the audience likes it, and his eyes are heavy with shadow and liner. He knows how he must look to them: irresistible. Otherworldly. And they’re all dying to touch.

He can feel their hands warm on his skin—their fingers tangling in his hair and tugging at his jewelry—and the nausea intensifies. The fire raging in his throat reminds him that he’ll have to choose one, so he vows to pick at random and call it a night.

But there’s a gaze on him, heavier than the rest, dripping with something he can’t quite name. It slithers around his neck like a noose, and he feels a predatory electricity spike down to his fingertips. It isn’t difficult to find the source: a boy with disheveled blond hair and round glasses, staring at Minho curiously from the middle of the audience. The sleeves of his oversized pink sweater are rolled up to the elbows, and he raises an eyebrow when he catches Minho staring back. His eyes are glassy, a clear indicator that the glamour is working, but his gaze feels like a physical weight and the searing pain in Minho’s throat increases tenfold.

He wants to touch him, suddenly—to taste his blood on his tongue and feel the heat of his skin under his hands.

It’ll be him, or no one.

He pushes through the crowd roughly, barely taking the time to be surprised at his own eagerness, until the boy is right in front of him with his messy hair and wide brown eyes. The heat radiating from him is intense, a solar flare in the dark, and Minho staggers backward as he nearly chokes on the pain in his throat. The club’s noise dims to static in his ears. His vision zeroes in on a pulse point—

The boy takes a step closer and flashes a bright smile— _oh, God_ —before reaching for Minho’s wrist. With the glamour still in full effect, he’ll want to touch Minho just as badly as anyone else in the room, and some sort of sick satisfaction floods through him at the thought.

Irresistible. Otherworldly.

His fingers finally meet Minho’s skin, and the heat is a shock so sudden, Minho flinches and a hiss slips past his teeth. The boy’s glassy eyes rake over his face, curious.

“I’m Jisung.” It’s loud and full of an unwarranted confidence, and the boy—Jisung—tightens his grip on Minho’s wrist. “I’ve never been here before. What’s so special about being tonight’s winner?”

The heat from his skin is almost unbearable, warmer than any human Minho has ever touched, and he feels an animalistic shiver crawl down his spine. His gaze is still locked on Jisung’s fluttering pulse point. He swallows. “It means you get to go backstage with us.”

Jisung grins. “To do what?”

God, his smile lights up the entire room, and Minho thinks it would be _so easy_ to lead him behind that stage and wrap his fingers around that pretty neck just for _one taste_ —

_Blood black as tar on church steps, dirt under his fingernails_ —he remembers it all in crystal-clear relief and a flash of guilt wars with the bloodlust. He nearly sucks in a habitual breath to steady himself but catches it at the last second and swallows it back. The air around him is thick and sweet as honey, and he’d be a fool to keep drinking it in like a man drowning.

“It’s nothing.” He coughs as the fire in his throat roars in protest. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested.” He moves to take another step back, but Jisung frowns and grabs at his free hand.

“I never said I wouldn’t be interested. Do I not meet your criteria or something?”

There are mere inches between them now, and Minho feels dizzy for the first time in over half a century. “That’s not it.” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, strained and on the verge of breaking.

“Then what is it?” Jisung takes a step closer. “My friends brought me here because you guys are supposed to be the best dance group in town.” He tilts his head to one side. He blinks long, slow, glamour-heavy. “I’m impressed, really, so I’m not ready for it to end yet.”

“You don’t understand—" Minho takes another step back, but Jisung tugs him forward roughly until their chests are pressed flush. The smell of his blood is impossible to ignore—alcohol and saccharin all at once—and his muscles ache.

A chorus of shouts and disappointed groans flies into the air as Hyunjin leaps back onto the stage with a girl in tow. In jeans and a simple soccer jersey, she doesn’t seem like the type he would normally go for, but then Minho catches the feisty light in her eyes and the tumble of her long, dark hair and immediately understands. If Hyunjin lets his glamour down, she’ll be a challenge, and Hyunjin had always liked the thrill of that.

The restlessness in the crowd only increases when Felix joins him, tugging on the wrist of a surly-looking boy in a dark hoodie. His baseball cap is pulled low and he seems far from enthused, but Felix’s glamour is strong—getting stronger everyday—and Minho knows that his coiffed silver hair and wide eyes will eventually make even this boy weak in the knees.

“You’re last, as always,” Felix says, nodding in Minho’s direction. 

Flames are making their way from Minho’s throat to the tips of his toes, and Jisung’s pulse point is so close, he can hear it thrumming underneath the club’s raucous noise. It’s intoxicating and maddening and so dangerous because he’ll _surely_ kill this boy—

Jisung raises a brow. “Well?”

And it snaps then, his will breaking like a taut wire, and Minho reaches up to run his fingers along the side of Jisung’s neck, to counteract that burning skin with his own icy touch. Jisung takes an audible breath and his grip tightens around Minho’s wrist. His glassy eyes seem to lose their last bit of focus.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Minho whispers. He feels his self-control fraying at the edges.

Jisung sucks in another breath, drawn out and slow. “I wouldn’t mind.”

It’s the glamour talking—it always is—and Minho has never forgotten that everything they do here is of dubious morality at best. But after years and years of the same routine, why does his chest suddenly ache with an uncertainty he can’t shake?

“We haven’t got all night, you know,” Hyunjin drawls from the stage.

“He’s right,” Jisung murmurs with the slightest of smiles. “Come on, it’s only one night. What’s the harm?”

The laugh that bubbles up in Minho’s aching throat is sharp and humorless. To see this human so calm and collected in the face of death—it would be admirable if it weren’t so twisted.

“I think you need to leave.” Minho closes his eyes and lowers his hand from Jisung’s neck.

“I don’t want to leave.”

“Get a move on, mate!” Felix shouts in English. A group of people shriek near the front of the crowd, and Felix is professional enough to drop a wink in their direction before turning back toward Minho.

Minho opens his eyes to see Jisung staring at him with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He notices then that his glasses have no lenses, and he wonders why he wears them at all. He wonders a lot of things about this sunshine boy with blood like honey—how quickly the scorching heat of his existence could be extinguished by Minho’s lithe fingers, how easy it would be to sate the endless pain tearing his throat into pieces—

“Go,” Minho gasps, shoving Jisung away with enough force to make him stumble. “Get out.” He can’t risk letting his glamour down, not with hundreds of prying eyes stuck to his every move like flies to paper, but Jisung needs to know, needs to _understand_ —

Jisung’s glasses slide to the end of his nose and even still—even now—Minho can hear his heartbeat pattering and it’s a divine sort of torture.

 _Lifeless eyes and chalky skin, blood tacky on his shaking hands with its metallic tang heavy between his teeth_ —a century later and he still sees it, feels it, drowns in it.

He remembers crying. He remembers going to the nearest church to pray, like the Western missionaries had taught him, and stopping short at the door when there was no one to invite him inside. The blood had dripped from his fingertips, black tar in the harsh moonlight.

Hands on his waist tug him back to the present, and he locks eyes with a slim girl in a bomber jacket, her hands inching dangerously close to his jeans. She arches a brow and tilts her head to one side. “I think your friends want you to choose.” Her glassy eyes slide toward Jisung.

Jisung blinks and pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. The sleeves of his pastel sweater have slipped down to cover his hands. Minho can feel heat radiating from him like a collapsing star forcing energy into the cosmos, but he takes a searing breath and thinks of lifeless eyes and black blood puddles on church steps.

“Would you like to join me… _sweetheart_?” He forces the endearment through gritted teeth and places a hand over hers. She’s nothing compared to Jisung—a cheap firework display after witnessing a supernova—but she’s blissfully safe. Minho gestures toward the stage.

She smiles demurely and blinks up at him through long artificial lashes. “I’d love to.”

He grabs her hand—lukewarm, he notes—and pulls her through the crowd, as far as he can get from Jisung’s blazing, burning fire. His skin still prickles, his throat aches, and he’s sure that Jisung’s smile is forever burned onto the darkness behind his eyelids. He feels the sudden overwhelming urge to tear something apart with his bare hands, and the familiar bite of acidic self-loathing rises to the back of his tongue.

Felix raises a brow when Minho brings the girl to the stage. “What about that—"

Minho shakes his head once, as sharply as he can manage, and Felix squints but doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m afraid that’s it, folks.” Hyunjin’s voice is petals on velvet as he leans into the microphone. A chorus of groans and shouts rises from the crowd. Hyunjin tilts his head to the side and raises a hand, palm facing outward. “Hey, hey, be sure to come back next week. We have a new performance planned, so it’s worth sticking around for.” He winks, and a handful of girls in the audience sigh. “And besides, you never know when the winner will be you.”

The overhead lights fade to black, and Minho tugs the girl backstage, keeping his glamour coiled tight against her skin. It makes her eager to follow, lacing her fingers through his and pawing at the fabric of his shirt, and the thought of what he’s about to do makes something dark curl in the pit of his stomach.

“See you on the other side, eh?” Hyunjin elbows him in the ribs and gives his partner a quick once-over. “Not that I disapprove, but I really thought you’d choose that guy with the glasses—"

“Drop it, Hyunjin.” Minho sighs. “Please.”

Hyunjin’s lips purse. “Whatever you say. Anyway, make it home safe, yeah? No casualties.”

Minho raises a brow. “You’re one to talk.” 

The girl clinging to Hyunjin’s arm blinks and tugs at his jacket. “Casualties?”

“Just a joke, love,” he purrs in her ear. “Let’s get going, hmm?” He saunters down the hallway and pulls her into the nearest room, closing the door behind them with a faint click.

Minho decides on the same room he had used to prepare for their performance, the one with the pleather loveseat and the shabby vanity. He keeps his glamour strong as he locks the door behind them.

The girl blinks up at him, her wide eyes as glassy as ever. She’s wearing colored lenses in a startling shade of blue, and the glue holding her lashes down is losing its hold in the corners. Her lipstick is smudged, and Minho frowns at the scent of alcohol coursing through her veins. He’ll taste it for sure, and he can only hope she hadn’t gone overboard.

She certainly had gone overboard, and the sterilized knife he’d used to make the incision falls to the floor with a clatter when the scent hits him full-force, but he has to drink, he has no choice, and he knows it. He flinches at the taste of alcohol and iron and salt as blood drips from her wrist and across his tongue.

His glamour is strong, the girl doesn’t scream, and he’s sealed her wound and patched her memory in under half an hour. His throat still burns when she leaves, but it’s bearable, and he heads home with a sigh heavy on his lips.

He collapses into bed and keeps his eyes trained on the stark white of the ceiling. He can’t sleep—he isn’t sure if he’ll ever sleep again—with his mind so full of that blazing fire, that thousand-watt smile, and what it would be like to slake his thirst with liquid sunshine.

☼

The week passes in an aching, torturous blur, and Minho is back on stage sooner than he would have liked. The crowd had responded well to their new performance, and raucous cheers bounce off the club’s walls in an endless cacophony. He feels like he’s swallowed teaspoon after teaspoon of acid. There’s a dull ringing in his ears, each muscle is poised to strike, and he can’t remember the last time he’d been this _thirsty._

“Dude, are you okay?” Felix’s voice is muffled, distorted like he’s speaking underwater.

“Fine,” Minho hisses.

The second Hyunjin makes his announcement, Minho jumps from the stage and pushes through the crowd roughly, ignoring their reaching hands and needy eyes. He has a destination, and the electricity in his veins won’t let him forget it.

He had felt him the instant he’d stepped into the club three hours prior: the dying stellar body forcing heat into the vacuum of space, that enticing fire, and _god it was so, so dangerous—_

He finds Jisung sitting at a booth pushed into a dark corner. His hands are clasped around a drink, and he has his head thrown back as he laughs loudly at something his friends are saying. Even from this distance, Minho can see his pulse thrumming underneath the delicate skin, and his fingers curl inward involuntarily. How could one person be this _much_ , this _overwhelming_?

“Jisung?” Minho flinches at the way his own voice sounds: unforgiving and dark.

Jisung turns his head, and Minho feels his entire body stiffen. His blond hair is styled back from his forehead, round glasses pushed down low on the bridge of his nose, and Minho swears he catches a glimpse of dark liner behind those long lashes. He flashes a bright smile, and Minho’s muscles coil in anticipation. 

“Oh hey, I remember you!” Jisung excuses himself from the table and comes to stand in front of him, eyes instantly going glassy at the strength of his glamour. “Did you need something?”

Minho swallows and it’s the purest agony. Each of his senses are on high alert and he’s drowning, the thirst all-encompassing, his brain foggy with the need— “D-do you want to come back with me?” The stutter slips out and catches him by surprise.

Jisung blinks, a slow fluttering of delicate lashes. “Of course.”

And that’s all it takes. Rational thought shatters like glass meeting concrete, and Minho is pulling Jisung toward the stage without another word. They’re offstage and down the hallway before Hyunjin has made his final announcements. Jisung’s wrist is alight in his grip, the rush of his blood a veritable symphony, and Minho thinks his knees might give out before they get anywhere.

“Where are we going?” The words tumble out on half a breath.

Minho pushes open the door to the nearest dressing room and slams it closed, stepping forward until Jisung’s back is pressed flush against the wall.

Jisung blinks again as his glamour-addled brain tries to catch up with the situation at hand. “Is this… Are we…?”

Inches between them, and Minho’s fingers are starting to shake.

“I-I mean, at least come back to my place?”

Another step closer, inches become centimeters, Minho’s hands find their way into Jisung’s hair.

A shaky breath. “Oh, o-okay, here is fine, I mean, here is definitely fine.”

Minho can feel himself slipping—the human part, the part he holds onto like a drowning man to a life preserver—it’s slipping and he can feel the bloodlust like sticky tar, clinging to the inside of his body, choking him, blinding him, _changing_ him. His fangs, slender as needles, dig into his bottom lip and he doesn’t have the equanimity to feel ashamed. Jisung is glass and he’ll break and break and break under Minho’s fingers until there’s nothing left.

He brings his lips to Jisung’s neck, harsh and uncontrolled, and Jisung lets out the softest whine that snaps Minho back to reality for a dizzying instant.

Black blood on church steps—

_What is he doing?_

Lifeless eyes and chalky skin, the shame, the guilt—

_You’re a monster, Lee Minho. A monster through and through._

He gasps and takes a step back. His glamour falls through the cracks in his shaky composure and Jisung’s eyes flutter open, focus on him, and sharpen with dread.

Minho knows what he sees: needlepoint fangs extended, digging into lips bloodless and ashy with need. Pupils pitch-dark and blown wide, with scarlet irises bleeding out across the sclera in a network of crimson spiderwebs. And he knows how he must look.

Deadly. Dangerous.

Jisung tries to step back but only succeeds in pressing himself harder against the wall, his nails scrabbling against the paint in a futile attempt to move. “You’re—"

Minho shakes his head, fingers curling into fists. It’s there again, the bloodlust, climbing up his throat with a razor-clawed vengeance. But the remedy is here, so easily attainable—

Jisung’s words come out as a strangled gasp. “Y-You’re a vampire.”

And Minho can’t stand it, the fear in his eyes and the chokehold that terror has on his speech. He can’t stand that it’s justified, can’t stand that he’s _right_. Jisung is right to cower against the wall, fingers splayed and eyes wide, frozen in horror with icy sweat disappearing into the collar of his shirt. And the bloodlust cheers in triumph because surely now Minho can have everything he was hoping for.

But then Jisung takes a step away from the wall and grabs Minho’s hand in both of his. Minho flinches at the fire on his skin and nearly chokes on the claws tearing his throat into pieces. How could this boy possibly be so audacious—

_“Please,”_ Jisung whispers. His eyes are wide and full of the genuine sincerity that can only come from someone supplicating, “please don’t kill me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/excelgesis)


	2. two

“I…” Minho tries to speak, his tongue pressing against the backs of his fangs, and Jisung’s grip tightens.

“You know how strict they are about this,” Jisung breathes. “You can’t—"

“I could.” Minho flinches as his voice comes out choked and small. Bloodlust still has a dark hand wrapped tight around his throat and his muscles are taut as bowstrings. “It would be so easy, you know. So quick.”

“But they’d catch you. You know what happens—"

Of course Minho knows. Everyone knows. It had been a topic of controversy on every politician’s platform for decades, and he can’t forget the choppy news coverage that had flickered across his dim TV screen when he’d returned to Korea in the 90s: a labyrinth of underground cells, vampires starved to the point of insanity, their skin like ashy leather pulled across brittle bones. An injustice, surely, and one that continued to split society along moral and ethical fault lines.

_But if you turn him,_ the bloodlust reasons—

“No,” Minho gasps. He manages to take a shaky step back. His throat _aches_ , his fingers shake, tiny pinpricks of pain shoot through his bottom lip whenever his fangs dig in too hard, and he knows he’s spiraling. He suddenly remembers Hyunjin hunched over Felix’s lifeless body and maybe that had been a lot like this.

But Minho isn’t Hyunjin.

“I have a brother.” Jisung’s voice is soft and his fingers are curled against the wall. “A sister, too. It’s her birthday next week.” His lips turn down at the corners. “I promised I’d visit her.”

Minho isn’t Hyunjin, and the life preserver of humanity is floating back to him on a blood-red sea. He reaches for it with shaking hands.

“I… I make music, too,” Jisung continues. His eyes are locked on his shoes, his round glasses perched at the very tip of his nose. “It’s not really good or anything, just something I do with my friends, but how else can you express yourself when the world’s this fucked up, you know?” He lets out a breathy, humorless laugh. “I’m sure you get what I mean.”

_Fucked up, indeed_. He knows better than anyone.

“I think you should get out,” Minho whispers. He takes a step back, then two and three more. There’s a darkness inside, thrashing against its chains, and it nearly breaks free when Jisung glances up with parted lips and messy hair.

“What?”

Minho’s back collides with the dressing room’s vanity, and a bottle of hairspray clatters to the floor. The sound is like a gunshot in the suffocating silence.

He thinks of gunshots ringing out across the town plaza. Spring, the scent of cherry blossoms thick in the air. 1919. Harsh words in clipped Japanese, but maybe they sound harsher because the language doesn’t belong on their peninsula, _his_ peninsula.

The passing of a century didn’t make the memory any weaker. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could die.

“Get out.” He squeezes his eyes shut and gestures toward the door. He feels the air shift when Jisung takes a step away from the wall. Minho’s legs tremble, and he lets himself slide to the floor. He’s vile, _God, he’s vile and twisted for wanting this so much._ “You have five seconds, Jisung.” The name burns on his tongue.

Jisung is out the door in three.

☼

Minho doesn’t leave his apartment for two days—or rather, two nights. He keeps his phone on silent to ignore the incessant calls from Hyunjin and Felix. There were twenty-three of them the last time he checked.

His head aches, he feels as if he’s swallowed glass, and his muscles sing with a predatory hum that makes him sick. He hasn’t been this thirsty in decades.

_You could have had him,_ the demon in his head snarls, thrashing in its chains.

“And then what?” He snaps, eyes fixed on the ceiling. It stares blankly back. He groans and pushes himself into a sitting position, his shoulder blades digging hard into the sofa.

He hears footsteps approaching his door before the loud knock echoes throughout his apartment. It’s followed by a hissed, “Lee Minho, for the love of God, if you don’t open this door right now, I will go to Wonsan and personally desecrate the graves of your family.”

It hurts still, somewhere behind his ribcage, whenever he thinks of Wonsan. But all he says is “Good luck getting across the border.”

Hyunjin’s boot makes contact with the door. “I’m serious, asshole.”

Minho huffs out a sigh and shuffles to the door, pulling it open to see Hyunjin with a storm in his eyes and raindrops on the shoulders of his leather jacket. He pushes past Minho roughly and folds his arms tight across his chest. “You better explain yourself.”

Minho lets the door swing shut. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Our friendship is on thin ice, Minho, do you really want to go there—"

“I don’t know if _friendship_ is the right word—"

“Jesus Christ.” Hyunjin tugs off his boots and throws them under the kitchen table. “Forty years of dealing with your bullshit, and this is the thanks I get?”

Minho purses his lips and swallows back the retort on his tongue. “What are you doing here, Hyunjin?”

“What do you think?”

“If it’s about work, just tell Siyeon that I’ll be back—"

Hyunjin snorts and sinks onto the sofa. “I don’t think Siyeon gives a shit about any of us, as long as the money’s coming in. The customers are getting a little antsy, but it’s nothing Felix and I can’t handle.” 

Minho hums and keeps his gaze fixed on the floor.

“You know why I’m actually here,” Hyunjin says softly.

Minho doesn’t look up.

“That boy. Did you…?” The question hangs heavy in the air between them.

Something sparks hot and angry in Minho’s veins. “Did I what?”

“Come on, Minho, you nearly tore his arm off when you took him backstage. I’ve never seen you that aggressive. Felix thought you killed him for sure—"

“Right, because _I’m_ the one with the self-control issues,” Minho hisses. His fingernails dig sharp crescents into his palms, and he can’t stop the ire pulsing underneath his skin. The thirst intensifies his anger—the grating pain in the back of his throat quickly wears his patience thin—but for Felix and Hyunjin to even _think_ —

“A century doesn’t make you perfect,” Hyunjin snaps back. “It happens to the best of us, so get off your fucking high horse.”

“I didn’t kill him.” The words come out low and cold. He marches to Hyunjin and jabs a finger against his chest. “I didn’t even _drink_. So obviously, Hwang Hyunjin, I am better than the best of us, and I’ve got more self-control in one finger than you’ll ever have in your entire goddamn body.”

Hyunjin’s lips curl into a lethal smirk. “The kid got you that riled up, huh?”

“Get out of my house,” Minho snarls.

“Dude!” Hyunjin lets out a breathy chuckle and holds up both hands. “I’m just saying, we’re all bound to run across humans like that eventually. No one will blame you if you snap.”

“No one will _blame me?_ ” A disbelieving scoff slips past his lips. “Are you listening to yourself?”

Hyunjin shrugs. “I mean, I got away with it.”

“It’s not the same,” Minho mutters. “You don’t get it.”

“Try me.”

Minho frowns and feels his fingernails dig deeper into the palms of his hands. “I can’t get him out of my head. I’m so fucking thirsty and no one else compares; I feel like I could drink for a year straight and it wouldn’t be enough.” 

Hyunjin snorts again. “And you think I don’t get it.”

“I’m sure it’s not the same—"

“You’re sure?” Hyunjin raises his voice, and anyone else would have cowered at the fire in his eyes. “Well, wait until you’ve got him nearly dead on the asphalt, then we’ll find out if it’s the fucking _same_. Do you seriously think Felix was just a fucking plaything for me?”

Minho averts his gaze. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, doesn’t want to think about how Hyunjin had fixated on Felix for days with a glint in his eyes that was part predatory, part fond. He doesn’t want to think about the club’s back door slamming shut behind him, Felix’s gasps as he tangled his fingers in Hyunjin’s hair, the way he had begged for more in a glamour-induced slur even though Hyunjin showed no signs of stopping, crimson blood running in rivers down his chin, his neck, his hands.

“You could’ve held back.” Minho’s voice is dark. “You _should’ve_.”

“Like you are? Because you’re such a goddamn _saint_.”

Minho feels his skin prickle. “You really don’t regret it? He was only 17, Hyunjin, he still had a whole life—"

There’s a noise then, high-pitched and breathy, and it takes Minho a moment to realize that Hyunjin is laughing at him. “A whole life? Are you hearing yourself? You’re the one who told me to kill him, you fucking hypocrite.”

“Death would be better than this.”

Hyunjin leans over to kick his shin with a socked foot. “God, you’re so dramatic, holy shit. You know Felix adores this. He’s got pretty boys fawning over him left and right, he’s doing what he loves, he’s _happy_. That’s way better than living in a stuffy goshiwon and getting into dirty clubs with a fake ID. Let him enjoy it.”

Minho frowns and says nothing.

“I know him better than you do, and I always will.” Hyunjin raises a brow. “And I don’t regret anything. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

☼

Minho goes back to work the next night, and Siyeon eyes him with something akin to concern when he shoulders open the door to the employee lounge.

“You look like you could use a drink.”

He dumps his bag in a nearby armchair. “Not funny.”

She has the decency to grimace. “Look, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but we can’t have you bailing like this.”

“I know.” Minho sighs and brings his fingers to his temples. There’s a pressure building behind his eyes and he grinds his teeth against it. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“How long has it been?”

“Since I drank?”

She nods.

Minho swallows. “Not last week’s performance, but the performance before that.”

Siyeon’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits. “Why?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“If you mess this up, you’ll be replaced.” Her tone is daggers and ice. “Don’t forget that.”

Minho’s glare is equally sharp as he pushes open the door. “I won’t.”

He slides behind the bar and sets to gathering abandoned glasses. It’s nine p.m. on a Monday and the customers are listless and sparse. He can see Hyunjin at the other end of the counter, elbows propped up, his head in his hands, flirting shamelessly with a blushing boy who’s definitely had one too many.

The front door swings open and someone shuffles down the steps, bringing in the intermingled scents of rainwater, cigarette smoke, and blood. Minho watches idly as they take a seat at the counter and shake the water from their hair.

There’s a sudden shout, and a hand shoots out to catch the door before it closes. Minho feels his fingernails dig into the granite countertop. It’s there again: that cosmic energy, that supernova in the dark expanse of his existence, and fire erupts from his throat to the tips of his toes.

Jisung trots down the stairs and slides onto a barstool, tugging a list of drinks toward him with lithe fingers. The coat he has on is puffy and oversized, and his hair is tousled beneath a white knit hat. He certainly isn’t dressed for a club, looking worlds different from the Jisung of last week with the styled hair and dark liner. But he’s still so quintessentially _Jisung_ : soft at the edges and breakable and _so enticing._

Hyunjin gets to him first, and Minho hears Jisung order a beer and nothing else.

Hyunjin saunters over to Minho at the opposite end of the bar and grabs a glass from the shelf. “He’s hot,” he says with a wink. “I’d like to remind you, in case you’ve forgotten, that Felix’s blood was the best I’ve ever had.”

“Fuck you, Hyunjin,” Minho hisses.

Hyunjin only shrugs and walks away with Jisung’s drink in hand.

It’s a pure, divine sort of agony.

Minho goes about his shift: mixing drinks, charming customers, accepting tips with a demure smile, but the monster inside thrashes against its restraints. He aches down to his teeth, his fangs threaten to extend whenever he opens his mouth, and every movement, every brush of air, every miniscule shift is as palpable as a blow to the chest. He can feel Jisung’s eyes on him, tracking every step he takes, and he wants to tear himself down to the very bones just so he won’t have to _feel_.

The clock strikes eleven and most of the customers have drifted out the door. A few couples linger in scattered booths, but Minho ignores them as his eyes come to rest on Jisung. He’s only halfway through his glass of beer, and he’d pulled his hat off some time during the night. His hair is a mussed cloud around his head and Minho remembers what it felt like in his fingers.

“Are you going to stop ignoring me?” Jisung’s voice is soft.

Minho’s fingers falter, and the shot glass in his hands slips from his grasp. He manages to catch it before it smashes against the tile. “No.”

“Why?”

“I can’t answer that, I’m ignoring you.”

Jisung chuckles. “Right.”

Seconds stretch into minutes. Jisung doesn’t drink any more, and Minho swallows against the pain in his throat. There’s a dull ringing in his ears. God, how is he supposed to stand this—

“Jisung?”

His eyes are bright when he looks up at Minho, and he wonders where the fear has gone. He rarely uses glamour on the nights he’s bartending—he doesn’t need customers pliant and anxious to touch when he’s simply serving drinks. So if glamour isn’t keeping Jisung locked on his every move, what is?

“Why are you here?”

Jisung gestures toward his glass. “The drinks here are pretty good.”

“No.” Minho shakes his head. “I mean, why did you come back? After…”

Jisung seems to mull over the question, tapping a fingernail gently against the side of his glass. “I want to know why you let me go.”

Minho feels his chest constrict. How can he explain that he’s a monster, that he’s guilty, that a century ago he had murdered an innocent woman and let her blood run down the steps of a church in the middle of the night, that he’s weak because it’s been a _century_ and he still isn’t able to let it go? That it’s a myriad of things, of hostilities and struggles and pain, and that specific memory of digging up through the dirt after being shot by a Japanese soldier, and Seungmin’s voice telling him that _everything is going to be okay—_

“You asked me to,” Minho chokes out eventually. “I did it because you asked me to.”

“That must’ve been hard for you, though.” Jisung tilts his head to one side.

Minho coughs. “It’s fine.”

Jisung lets out a breath through his nose. “You’re not a very good liar.” He slides from the barstool and reaches for his hat. “Tell your friend I said thanks for the drink.”

Minho blinks and glances at Hyunjin, who’s leaning against the bar with a sly smile. “On the house, sweetheart.”

“What—” Minho sputters. He turns back toward Jisung and sees him pulling his hat down to cover his ears.

“I’m just that charming, I guess.” He grins before turning on his heel and heading for the exit.

The pain in Minho’s throat stays put long after he leaves.

Siyeon lets him off half an hour later with a curt “get your shit together,” and he snags his bag from the lounge and hurries out the door.

It’s still raining and he’d forgotten his umbrella, but the sound of raindrops splattering against concrete clears his head. The smell of petrichor mixes with the scents of blood and pollution and street food. It’s not entirely pleasant, but Minho pulls it into his lungs anyway and sighs when the pain dies down, just a little.

He heads for the nearest subway entrance and shuffles down the stairs. It’s nearly empty at this hour, and the underground shops stand eerie and deserted with metal grates pulled over their entrances. He jogs down another set of stairs to the platform and sinks onto a bench. He thinks it’s almost peaceful down here, with a handful of hushed voices scattered from end to end and advertisements playing across the timetable screens. He tilts his head against the wall behind him and closes his eyes.

“Ah, fuck.” It’s muttered softly under someone’s breath, and razor-sharp claws instantly rake down Minho’s throat. His eyes snap open, every muscle tenses, and a reflexive hiss slips past his teeth. His head whips to the side, and Jisung is standing there, one hand pressed against the front of a vending machine. He’s staring at it with his eyebrows drawn low. He presses at the same button again and again and frowns when nothing happens. “You ate my money!”

Minho swears the universe is testing him, and he briefly wonders what he did to deserve this. But _ah, yes, of course. He’s a monster, after all._

Jisung huffs out a sigh and collapses onto the nearest bench. He digs around in his bag, fishes out a pair of headphones, and shoves them over his ears. Every movement shifts the air in Minho’s direction. He runs his tongue along the back of his teeth and swallows. His gums ache as he struggles to keep his fangs from extending.

_No one would blame you if you snap._

His fingers curl. _I’d blame myself._

He watches as Jisung’s fingers tap out a rhythm against the bag in his lap. He has his bottom lip caught between his teeth and his glasses perched on the end of his nose. _He’s pretty like this._ Minho wonders how much prettier he’d be with blood trailing down his neck. The beast claws at its chains.

_No._

_You could have him._

_No._

_He’s right there, so easy—_

_No._

Jisung glances over then, and his eyes widen when he sees Minho staring. He doesn’t want to know what his face looks like—desperate, dark, _thirsty—_ so he ducks his head and squeezes his eyes shut.

“It’s Minho, right?”

The sound of his name on Jisung’s tongue sets his entire body alight. He flinches. “What are you doing here?”

“What else would I be doing here? I don’t come to the station to just hang out, you know.”

Minho opens his eyes to see him tugging his headphones down. He lets them hang loosely around his neck. Even from this distance, Minho can smell the rainwater on his skin and the remnants of alcohol in his veins. _God, just one taste—_

“Train’s delayed.” Jisung gestures to the TV screen, where a delay notification flashes in between advertisements. Minho hadn’t even noticed. He looks away.

“Can I ask you something?” Jisung’s voice is stilted with a sudden curiosity.

Minho hesitates. He swallows. “Sure.”

“At the club, when you invite winners back…” He pauses. “You drink from them, right? That’s what winning means? Or was it just…me?”

Nausea settles in Minho’s stomach. “It’s everyone.”

Jisung hums and nods. “And other people don’t ask you to let them go?”

“No.”

“Because you glamour them?”

Minho’s head snaps up in surprise. The few humans who were curious about glamour usually missed the mark by miles when they tried to figure it out. Vampires liked to keep it close, a guarded secret, and the majority of the human population blew it off as a myth. “How—”

“You’re not the only vampire I’ve met,” Jisung says. The smile that tugs at his lips is sad in a way Minho can’t understand. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I…” Minho frowns and tries to choose his words carefully. “We use glamour, yes. The process wouldn’t really be as…effective if we didn’t.”

Jisung merely nods again. Minho isn’t sure what to say, and it’s quiet for a long while. “If you use it on them, why didn’t you use it on me?”

Minho doesn’t like where this conversation is going. “I did. At first.”

“At first?”

“I…couldn’t maintain it.”

Jisung squints. “Why?”

“Does it matter?” It comes out a shade sharper than Minho intended, and he feels guilt bubble up in his throat when Jisung flinches backward.

“I guess not,” he whispers.

And Minho cuts the conversation off there because he can’t bring himself to say anything else. He curls his fingers into fists just to uncurl them again. There’s a buzzing in his ears.

“Train’s coming,” Jisung murmurs, minutes after Minho had already heard it four stops away. They stand at the same time. Jisung glances over his shoulder but doesn’t say anything as he slings his bag across his back. It’s halfway unzipped, and a jumbled mix of notebooks, pens, and tangled earbuds spills to the platform floor. He curses softly under his breath and bends down to gather them in his hands.

Minho sees it all before it happens.

Just as Jisung rights himself and reaches to shove everything back into his bag, a woman with her eyes locked on her phone screen strides past. Minho moves toward him on instinct, and the woman bumps hard against Jisung’s shoulder. He lets out a cry of surprise and tips forward, and Minho doesn’t remember moving, doesn’t remember thinking, doesn’t remember how Jisung ends up pressed flush against his chest with his fingers clinging to Minho’s shirt.

The woman mutters a hasty apology, but Minho barely hears it. The sound of Jisung’s rapid pulse just beneath the skin is suddenly amplified, louder and louder and louder until it’s all he hears. His fingers dig into Jisung’s forearms involuntarily. Jisung lets out a breath that fans warm across Minho’s neck. Something visceral tears through his chest, instinctual and dark and deadly.

The beast breaks free from its chains.

He’s got Jisung pressed hard against the concrete wall in the time it takes to blink. He can see nothing else, smell nothing else, think of nothing else—it’s primal, animalistic, and the bloodlust cheers because _this is how it’s supposed to be._

No thoughts. Instinct.

Jisung’s grip on his shirt goes slack. His heartbeat picks up speed. Minho sees the blood pumping just under the skin—there, there, and there—

His fangs dig into his lower lip.

_Finally._

He’s got his lips pressed to the soft skin, his hands rough in Jisung’s hair, the taste of sweat and rainwater just beneath his tongue—

And hands are on his shoulders, yanking him back roughly with inhuman force. A snarl tears past his teeth—a sound he didn’t know he could make—and he’s clawing at his captor with shaking hands. Jisung’s face swims in and out of focus: wide eyes, tangled hair, shock—the beast thrashes as it’s torn from its salvation.

The searing pain in his throat morphs into something intolerable, creeping across his tongue and through his chest until he feels faint.

Darkness.

He blinks and it’s gone. He can hear the pained gasps slipping from his own mouth.

He blinks again.

Darkness.

And this time, it stays.


	3. three

“I thought I told you to get your shit together.” Siyeon’s voice, laced with something lethal.

The leather of the club’s employee lounge sofa is cool against Minho’s back. He doesn’t dare open his eyes. Siyeon’s fingers dig into his shoulders, hard enough to cause pain he supposes, and he hears her huff out a soft “for the love of God.”

Footsteps shuffle just outside the door. The sharp scent of blood registers in his brain, distant and foggy, and acid slips down his throat. It’s not Jisung’s, not nearly as tantalizing, but his muscles coil to strike nonetheless.

“That’s it,” Hyunjin says softly. _Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle._ “You’re doing a great job.” It’s glamour-heavy, dripping with a honey-sweet flirtation, and Minho pulls his eyelids open as Hyunjin nudges the door open with his shoulder.

The boy clinging to his arm looks impossibly young, with disheveled dark hair and sharp eyes. He grins up at Hyunjin lazily, dimples on full display, before nearly melting into his side.

“Good, good.” Hyunjin runs a hand through the boy’s hair and shoots Minho a pointed look.

Before Minho can process anything through the haze and pain and confusion, Siyeon snags a surgical knife from a back cabinet and makes a neat incision on the boy’s left wrist. He lets out a soft gasp and blinks slowly at the wound, regarding it with a detached curiosity like an onlooker at a car accident. Blood runs in rivulets to the floor.

A sound tears through Minho’s throat, a snarl that has Siyeon flinching in surprise, and he’s on his knees with the boy’s wrist at his mouth before he can think twice.

It’s messy, and completely devoid of the elegance vampires were historically associated with. There’s no place for velvets and silks, delicate puncture wounds at the jugular and lithe fingers wrapped around the stems of crystal wine glasses. Not here, in the back room of a Gangnam nightclub with scuffed floors. The blood runs hot down Minho’s fingers, staining the cuffs of his jacket as the sharp pain in his throat rounds out into the shape of something tolerable.

_Tolerable?_ His brain hisses. _D_ _on’t you deserve better?_

The boy goes pliant, so willing, staring at Minho with glassy eyes. Hyunjin continues to run his fingers through the boy’s hair. And maybe, if Minho keeps his eyes closed, if he paints Jisung’s face across the space behind his eyelids, if he pretends hard enough—He feels his lips pull back from his fangs just as a hand comes to wrap around his neck.

“Don’t you dare bite him,” Siyeon spits, pushing him back roughly. The boy’s wrist falls from his grasp.

Minho coughs as blood runs thick from his lips to the tip of his chin. Reality snaps back into focus with a painful clarity and he wishes he could vomit, if only to rid himself of the nausea. Siyeon’s fingers dig into the side of his neck and fire sparks behind her irises. The boy goes limp in Hyunjin’s arms, his eyes threatening to flutter closed.

“I’m sorry,” Minho gasps, but he doesn’t know who he’s apologizing to.

Hyunjin snorts and rolls his eyes. His fingers continue to card through the boy’s hair. “Apologize to the boy toy you could have killed out there.”

Minho flinches. Jisung’s skin against his lips, his fingers tangled in wet hair—the dull ache that flares in his throat is lessened only by the weight of his guilt. “Where is he?”

Siyeon lets her hand fall from Minho’s throat. “Does it matter?”

“I—”

A light knock at the door echoes throughout the lounge, and the room goes eerily still. A pressure settles on Minho’s chest, a gravitational tug that he hasn’t felt in decades, and it’s 1919 again: dirt caked under his fingernails, looking back at his shallow grave in mute horror, choking on the disbelief—

“Seungmin?” He breathes.

The door opens on silent hinges. Seungmin’s lips turn down at the corners, looking every bit as youthful as he had the last time Minho saw him. He had swapped his dated suit and tie for a hoodie and tight jeans, but Minho would know the face of his Maker anywhere.

“I would ask if you missed me,” Seungmin says with a delicate sigh, “but I’m sure you didn’t.”

Minho feels as if his skin has iced over. “Y-You’re… here?”

“Obviously.”

“Why? What are you—what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since—"

“1950?” Seungmin tilts his head to one side as the faintest smile ghosts across his lips. “I missed you, even if the feeling’s not mutual.”

Minho moves to stand on shaky legs. The cuffs of his jacket are soaked crimson and he can feel the blood drying against his face. Nearly seventy years, and this is what he has to show for it? That all of Seungmin’s guidance, his teaching, his advice had led to Minho nearly killing someone in the back room of a Seoul nightclub?

“I’m sorry, Seungmin, I… I swear I don’t—"

Seungmin shakes his head and strides toward Hyunjin, reaching for the boy in his arms. He holds his bleeding wrist in gentle fingers and raises an eyebrow in Minho’s direction. “At least seal the wound. I taught you better than that, didn’t I?”

Guilt flares again in Minho’s stomach as he seals the gash with a quick swipe of the tongue. He watches as the coagulation process picks up speed and the skin begins to knit back together. _Interesting, isn’t it,_ Seungmin had always said, _that someone could be killed and healed by the same hands._

Seungmin purses his lips and glances up at Hyunjin. “Make sure he gets home safe.”

Minho is prepared for a Hyunjin-esque retort—sharp and quick—but he merely stares at Seungmin with wide eyes before nodding and carrying the boy out the door.

Siyeon clears her throat. “Don’t let this happen again.” She throws Minho one last glare before letting the door fall shut behind her.

The room descends into another bout of eerie silence. Minho stares at the drops of blood littering the concrete floor and tries to push away a quickly rising unease.

“Minho, look at me.”

He flinches and takes a step back before locking eyes with his Maker. Seungmin’s expression is as open and kind as Minho remembers, but there’s concern laid bare in his gaze.

“Can you guess why I’m here?”

Minho swallows and shakes his head.

Seungmin raises a brow. “You can’t?”

His brain flips through thousands of images in the span of a second: Jisung pressed against the wall, the young boy standing limp in Hyunjin’s arms, the white expanse of his apartment’s ceiling mocking him for his weak will. He tries to use his jacket sleeve to wipe the drying blood from his face. “Things have been difficult.”

“As I’ve noticed.”

“So what, are you here to chastise me or something?”

Seungmin laughs then, just the smallest puff of air through parted lips. “Not exactly. I’m here to check on you.”

Minho sinks onto the couch. “I… I don’t need to be checked on.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Minho shuffles in his seat.

He doesn’t have to ask how Seungmin knows—as his Maker, he’s attuned to Minho’s emotions almost as well as Minho himself. A thirst as strong as what he feels for Jisung would have immediately registered on Seungmin’s radar. And he’s ashamed, suddenly, that his weakness has dragged Seungmin to him like this.

“We can talk about it.” Seungmin’s voice is soft as he sits next to Minho and places a gentle hand on his knee. “If that’ll help.”

Minho curls in on himself. “I’m sure you already know.”

Another beat of silence. “Of course I do.” 

Minho flinches as shame washes through him again. There’s another apology on the tip of his tongue, but Seungmin shakes his head.

“Minho, do you remember Donghyuck?”

It’s an unexpected question, and Minho glances at Seungmin in surprise. Of course he remembers Donghyuck, all honey skin and tousled hair under the soft yellow light of that dingy bar. He had been young—only 18 when he was turned—and he was by far the most reckless of their group. But he had a laugh like sunshine and none of them could stay angry with him for long. “Yes. Where are you going with this?”

“When the war started and we all split up, he fled the country. Did you know that?”

Minho frowns. “A lot of us did.”

“Yes, but…” Seungmin’s voice turns soft at the edges with nostalgia. “He met someone there. A human.”

Dread flits cold down Minho’s spine.

“The most enticing blood he’d ever smelled, he told me.” Seungmin’s fingers lace together in his lap. “They were like magnets, always coming back together no matter how many times they were pulled apart. But you know what?”

Minho stays silent and keeps his gaze turned toward the floor. He doesn’t want to know where Seungmin is going with this, doesn’t want to know what Donghyuck might have done—

“He wouldn’t bite him. He refused.”

His head snaps up at that. “What?”

“It was more than blood between them,” Seungmin muses. “It was a mutual attraction, completely undeniable. They fell in love.” A corner of his mouth twists upward in a wry smile. “And every day was the most unbelievable torture because he had to wage that war: the battle between his human affection and his vampiric nature.”

Minho opens his mouth to speak but closes it again when he realizes he has nothing to say. The faintest bite of nausea settles on his tongue.

Seungmin sighs. “So the human went to the Vestry.”

Ice slips into his veins. “No,” he gasps.

“He consented to the blood bond,” Seungmin murmurs. “For Donghyuck’s sake. He trusted him enough to drink without killing him. He put his life in his hands. The Vestry granted his request and he was so sure that he’d made Donghyuck happy; he was _so sure_ that it would work…”

Minho feels like choking. “Seungmin—"

“But the second Donghyuck got a taste…” Seungmin’s voice drops ever lower. “He couldn’t stop. Mark was dead in half a minute and Donghyuck couldn’t forgive himself. He couldn’t live like that, not with that guilt on his hands. It drove him to madness.”

The air in the room morphs into something heavy.

“He intercepted a Hunter party in the woods… It was the 50s, I’m sure you remember what it was like. All those businesses losing money after the war, trying to stay afloat by doing the underground’s dirty work. Donghyuck begged them to kill him. They didn’t need to be told twice.”

Minho sits stock still as a dark sadness rises in him like viscous tar. “Why are you telling me this?”

There’s a pause in which Seungmin places a hand over Minho’s own. “Please just… Just don’t make any rash decisions. Can you promise me that?”

“Do you really think—" A shocked laugh slips past Minho’s lips, and he would be ashamed if the situation didn’t seem quite so ridiculous. “That Jisung and I… Seungmin, no, it isn’t like that, it won’t ever be like that. _A consensual blood bond_ , are you joking—" He sees the exact moment pity seeps into Seungmin’s face.

“I’m just asking you to be careful. That’s all.” 

“I…” He shakes his head as the syllables stumble across his tongue. “Do you… Do you not trust me? After all these years, Seungmin, really—"

“Minho, look at yourself.” Seungmin’s lips turn downward in a frown. He gestures toward him, as if to indicate his bloodstained sleeves and pleading eyes. “I’ve never seen you like this. I’m just worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.” His voice trembles on the last word and his fingers curl inward. “I can control myself. I’m strong enough to do that; you know I am.”

Their gazes lock, and Seungmin’s is heavy with doubt. “Everything you’ve done so far proves otherwise.”

☼

Jisung doesn’t return to the club, and Minho feels a steady relief chipping away at the edges of his worry. They continue their performances as normal, and while the blood of random strangers never slakes the thirst entirely, it becomes easier and easier to push away the thought of Jisung’s blinding radiance.

After a month, he feels almost normal again. There are days, occasionally, when Jisung’s bright smile and enticing heat worm their way into his dreams, and he wakes up with his throat aching and his muscles tense. But work becomes a way to cope as he surrounds himself with warm, beating hearts and soft skin. Girls with long, flowing hair and gaudy jewelry usually have expensive perfume dabbed on their wrists, and while it isn’t the most pleasant taste, he grows accustomed to it. Boys with styled hair and tight jeans smell like cigarette smoke mixed with soju, but it’s easy to overlook when the blood is hot on his tongue. Felix’s shoulders lose their tension, and Hyunjin drops the subject of Jisung entirely, instead opting to elbow Minho in the side with a grin whenever he takes two winners backstage instead of one. It’s far from ideal, but it’s tolerable, and Minho finds himself regaining his sense of control.

“You almost out of here?” Felix calls one Monday night as he gathers empty glasses from a corner booth. “I thought your shift ended at one.”

Minho tosses the soiled washrag in his hands into a nearby bucket of cleaning solution. “Yeah, I’m heading out. Some guy spilled his Jager over on 32 but I took care of it. Do you need help with anything?”

Felix shakes his head and throws him his signature radiant grin, all pearly teeth and half-moon eyes, but the door swings open before he can say anything. Minho watches as his smile falters. “Again?”

Minho blinks. “Again what—”

Felix lets out a soft sigh and sets the dirty glasses back down on the table. “You’re here again, hyung? Do you know what time it is?”

Minho slides his gaze over to the customer, who regards Felix with an expression that Minho can only describe as _bashful._ He’s got his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat as he shuffles his feet back and forth. “Midnight, maybe?”

“One thirty a.m.,” Felix says.

The boy’s lips quirk upward in an embarrassed smile as he runs a hand through his hair. It’s dyed a bright blond that’s left the ends frizzy, and his fingers get caught in the tangle. “Later than I thought. Or would it be earlier?”

Felix raises a brow but says nothing.

“Look, I know, I’m _trying._ Really.” He tugs his hand from his hair and slips it back into his pocket. Minho can hear his heartbeat from across the room, pattering a beat or two faster than it should be. He squints in Felix’s direction.

“You’re gonna have to try a little harder than that.” Felix moves one step closer. “You can’t keep running back here to see me whenever you can’t sleep.”

The boy’s ears turn cherry red as his heart pitter-patters into overdrive. “It’s not—I don’t just come here to see you, you know, that would be—” He blinks and drops his gaze. “I have a friend with me, he just went to the convenience store around the corner. I-I’m not staying long, I just…” His voice falls into something softer. “Thought I’d stop by.”

The look on Felix’s face wavers between affection and concern. Minho is picking up on half a dozen things that should most certainly _not_ be happening, and his brows lower when Felix tilts his head to one side. “Maybe you should go meet up with him. I’m sure you both have work tomorrow.”

The boy shuffles his feet back and forth. “Afternoon shifts, so it’s not a big deal. Jisung’s nice enough to keep me company when it… gets bad like this.”

Minho flinches involuntarily at the name. He’s about to open his mouth to ask Felix who this boy is and how they know each other, but the front door slams open and the words stick behind his teeth.

Jisung stands at the top of the steps, a plastic bag dangling from one hand and his glasses slipping down his nose. “It’s fucking _cold,”_ he hisses. He trots down the stairs and pulls his free hand from his coat pocket. “They had that weird drink you like, Chan, so I grabbed it for you—”

The boy— _Chan—_ smiles and snags the bag from Jisung’s grasp. A sudden, unnatural quiet slides into the room, and he glances up with raised brows. “What—”

Felix’s gaze flicks toward Minho. There’s a rigidity to his posture that wasn’t there before. And Minho can’t _stand it—_ this tension like eggshells under their feet. His eyes find Jisung instantly and it’s a horrible, lovely, awful mistake. Magma slips down the back of his throat, a dull ringing echoes in the aching void between his ears, his fingers curl inward and _God—_ he was stupid to think this was over. It had been a month, a miniscule handful of weeks, barely the blink of an eye in the stretch of his immortal existence, but he’d thought he was _better._

And now he has to get out, he has to leave, because the beast is clawing at its chains as if it had never left. He takes a step back. “I… I’m going to go… finish those dishes, Felix.” They had washed them all hours ago, but Felix grimaces and gives him a curt nod.

He’s in the kitchen before anyone can draw another breath, but it makes little difference.

_So close,_ the monster snarls.

“No,” he gasps. He reaches for the countertop and braces himself against it. He shouldn’t, he won’t, he can’t—

“Uh.” Chan’s voice, as clear as if he were standing in the same room. “Is everything okay?”

He hears Felix clear his throat. It’s a very human thing to do, and he wonders just how much Chan knows. “Yeah, yeah, he’s just… busy. Crazy day here, you know.” It’s stilted—an obvious lie—and they instantly fall back into silence.

It stretches long, infinite, and the ache in Minho’s muscles worms its way into his brain. His fingers dig hard into the granite counter, and he flinches when a series of hairline cracks blooms across the surface. He’ll get an earful from Siyeon later, but he doesn’t dare drop his hands.

Minutes pass—maybe three, maybe four, maybe twenty—but he eventually hears footsteps on the stairs, the door opening and closing, the habitual breath that rushes from Felix’s lungs. It’s not long before the kitchen door swings open and Felix is staring at him with _pity_ on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know they knew each other—”

Minho shakes his head. The pain in his throat subsides enough for him to open his mouth. He wants to say that he’s going home, that Felix doesn’t need to apologize, that’s he’s stronger and better and more capable than before—but all that comes out is a heavy sigh. He pushes away from the counter and heads for the door.

“Minho.” It’s soft enough that a human would have missed it.

Minho screws his eyes shut. “Yeah?”

“Just…” A pause. “Be careful. I don’t want you to do anything you’ll… regret.”

He could say the same thing to Felix, he reasons. He thinks of the blood rushing to Chan’s face, the uneven pounding of his heart, the stutter of his syllables. It’s dangerous in a different way, a way that could easily be a hundred times worse. But he can hardly step into Felix’s battle when he can’t even fight his own, so he nods, stays quiet, and leaves.

The walk home isn’t long, but he likes it like this sometimes, when the subways stop running and the streets go whisper-quiet in the dark. The pain dies down. His mind quiets.

It’s when he reaches his complex that the thin glass of his self-control shatters against the cement. There’s a taxi turning back onto the street, acid seeps into his veins, two people are hurrying up the stairs—he takes half a step back. He watches as Jisung reaches into his coat pocket for his phone. He watches as it slips from his numb, ice-cold fingers and tumbles down the steps. He watches as he curses under his breath, turns around, runs to pick it up—

He stops short when he sees Minho. His phone lies forgotten on the pavement. Minho hears it when his breath hitches in his throat.

“Hey, is everything—” Chan glances over his shoulder, one hand poised over the door handle, and frowns when he sees them. “Are you…”

“Um.” Jisung clears his throat. “Give me a second, I’ll… I’ll meet you up there.”

Chan raises a brow. He doesn’t say anything as he pulls the door open, but Minho sees him cast Jisung a concerned look before it closes behind him.

Jisung shoves his hands back into his pockets. “Uh. Hey.”

Minho takes another step back. “What are you doing, Jisung?”

“Nothing, I just…” There’s a worried line between his eyebrows. He lets out a breath through his nose. “I want to know why you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Jisung gestures between them. It shifts the air in Minho’s direction, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. “Whatever this is. I have a hard time believing you act like this with every human you meet.”

He curls his fingers into fists at his sides. “Can you just”—he swallows—“Can you just let it go?”

“I don’t want to let it go.” There’s an edge to it—some kind of sadness, some kind of _hurt—_ and Minho opens his eyes to see Jisung turn his gaze toward the ground. “You obviously feel… I don’t know, bad or upset or something, and you shouldn’t.”

“I _shouldn’t?”_ He hears the incredulity in his own voice. “What do you mean I _shouldn’t,_ Jisung, I could have _killed you._ Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“I understand just fine,” Jisung huffs. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” He hunches his shoulders. “Look, I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, and you should know that I… I don’t know if ‘appreciate’ is really the right word here, but—”

“What the hell are you trying to say?”

“I don’t know!” He runs a hand through his hair, tilts his head back, keeps his gaze fixed on the sky. “I just don’t think you should feel bad, you know?” His eyes are bright when he turns them back to Minho’s face. “It isn’t your fault that this happened to you, but you’re still _trying._ Don’t you think that counts for something?”

Minho doesn’t know what to say. Words climb up his aching throat and stick like glue. He opens his mouth, closes it again, uncurls his fists. Silence hangs heavy. He watches as a shiver runs all the way to Jisung’s toes. He tries to remember what the cold felt like in Wonsan—biting and bitter maybe, with snow collecting in pools of yellow lamplight and soldiers leaving icy footprints in front of his door. But it doesn’t matter now, he supposes. “I don’t think it counts for anything,” he finally whispers. “You’re a fool if you think it does.”

☼

He can’t get the conversation out of his head all week. It sits, restless, at the back of his mind while he pours drinks and ignores Felix’s concerned eyes. Hyunjin picks up on it the second he comes in, and he frowns when Minho refuses to say anything. But Minho hears them talking, low and quiet in the back of the kitchen, though they know he’s never really out of earshot.

“He attacked him, you know,” Hyunjin murmurs. “In the subway station. His Maker had to fucking _drag_ him here.”

Felix heaves out a sigh. “Do you really think he’s gonna make it through this?”

Hyunjin pauses. Minho tries to block out what he says next, but it’s still crystal clear over the bustle of customers at the bar. “I dunno, Lix. He’s not as strong as he thinks he is.” 

He flinches at that.

_You’re wrong,_ he thinks. _I’ll prove it._

He doesn’t see Jisung for the rest of the week, but relief doesn’t creep in the way it did before. There’s an ever-present unease in his chest, and he doesn’t miss the way Hyunjin keeps a close eye on him every night.

The days crawl by, slower than usual, and when Friday finally hits and customers pour through the door, his muscles are already buzzing with anticipation. He knows the human he chooses will barely take the edge off, but he can’t hope for anything better. It’s tolerable. It’s enough.

The clock _tick tick ticks_ down to their performance. He feels jittery, on-edge, anxious.

_Just one,_ he says to himself. _Just one performance and it’s over. Choose the first person you see. Make it quick. It’s enough._

They take their places. Hyunjin keeps the entire room in check easily, and Minho watches as their eyes go glassy. Their muscles relax. Their blood slows—just a little, just enough—and it’s simple from there. Guilt wraps tight around his neck because he’s _made for this—_ this taking and taking and taking. He wonders if the self-loathing ever dies.

They’re halfway through when he feels it: eyes on him, heavy and hot, and he stumbles before he can stop himself. Hyunjin’s eyebrows lower. Felix worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

He’s there in the far corner, tucked into a booth with a handful of friends, and Minho can smell the sharp tang of alcohol in his veins despite the distance. He’s done up tonight—hair styled, no glasses, shirt hanging open at the collar. Minho catches the glint of multiple earrings. He shudders down to his toes, swallows back the ache, and keeps moving.

Jisung’s eyes don’t leave him once, tracking each and every step Minho takes, and—for the first time in his life—he feels like _prey._

Hyunjin frowns and cuts the performance off early. The crowd doesn’t notice, and they continue to shout and snap pictures as he makes his ending announcements. Minho keeps his eyes trained forward. The noise dies down to a sharp, tinny ringing. He feels Felix’s hand at his elbow, but he doesn’t move. He won’t. He can’t.

“Don’t,” Felix breathes.

Minho doesn’t have to guess at what he means. “I won’t,” he mutters through clenched teeth.

The second Hyunjin is finished, Minho slides from the stage and grabs the first person he lays eyes on. It’s a boy with delicate features and disheveled hair, and he grins lazily when Minho wraps his fingers around his arm. He smells like some expensive cologne that Minho knows he’ll hate the taste of. Jisung’s gaze tugs at his consciousness, heavy like an anchor, and he glances over before he can stop himself.

His features are shadowed in the dim lighting, but his eyes flash with something that forces a shiver down each and every notch of Minho’s spine. Jisung doesn’t look away, even as he raises a shot glass to his lips and downs its contents. He’s as heavily glamoured as the rest of them, but where the crowd is feather-soft and pliable, Jisung feels sharp as a razor.

Minho tears his gaze away and pulls the boy backstage.

His blood is _nothing—_ lukewarm water on Minho’s tongue—and he seals the wound, patches his memory, and ushers him out the door in under ten minutes.

He wishes, for the hundredth, thousandth, _millionth time,_ that he could die.

Siyeon eyes him with concern when he comes back to the bar. “Already?” She murmurs.

Minho can’t look at her. “It’s fine.”

She frowns and moves to pour another drink.

Customers shuffle out the door after half an hour, and they let the glamour drop. Hyunjin returns with a lazy smile, and Minho feels sick at the way he takes his _time._ It’s fun for him, Minho knows—a game of sorts—and the thought makes him both intensely nauseous and fiercely jealous. Hyunjin’s eyes flit to the corner booth, and his smile twists into an anxious frown. “Why is he still—"

Minho shakes his head.

Hyunjin reaches for his arm. “Look, I know you don’t wanna do this—”

“I don’t,” he snaps. “So drop it.”

“How the _fuck_ can I drop it?” He squints and gestures to where Jisung is still staring with pitch-dark, half-lidded eyes. “If he’s going to keep coming back here, you don’t really have any other choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Hyunjin,” Minho hisses. “At least I’m strong enough to make the right one.”

“Oh my fucking God, you’re going to do this again? Right now? Seungmin told me what happened at the station, you asshole. You aren’t better than the rest of us.” His eyes narrow. “So stop acting like it.” He turns and stalks to the other side of the bar.

There’s always an instant apology on the tip of Minho’s tongue whenever he argues with Hyunjin, but now it’s eclipsed by the ache inching up his throat and flooding his mouth. It’s a shade duller than usual, softened by the blood in his veins, but still enough to set his muscles alight. He knows when Jisung rises from his seat, stumbles across the room, perches at the bar—the air shifts with each and every move he makes. He’s running hotter than normal, courtesy of the alcohol coursing through his body, and a jagged slice of heat sears down the back of Minho’s neck. His hands falter; a shot glass slips through his fingers and explodes across the tile. He hears Hyunjin curse under his breath.

“Jisung.” Minho tries to keep his voice level, but there’s an undeniable tremor to it. “You need to go home.” He keeps his head down and focuses on counting the shards of glass at his feet. _One, two, three—_

“Mmmm,” Jisung groans. Minho feels it when he leans forward and stretches his upper body across the counter. “Don’t wanna.”

And _God,_ he’s so far gone, syllables slurred in his mouth, and Minho’s first thought is _he wouldn’t even fight if you tried to—_

He feels unsteady on his feet. He glances over—just once—and instantly regrets it, just as he knew he would. The product in Jisung’s hair is losing its hold and loose strands have toppled across his forehead. There’s glitter-gold shadow smudged at the corners of his eyes, so pretty against his skin, and Minho sees it glinting at the tips of his fingers. He’s drunk enough to sleepily rub off his own makeup, and _oh, it’d be so easy._

“You need to call someone to come pick you up.” But Minho isn’t sure if he can, and he wonders if maybe he should hail a cab and have someone drag him up the stairs.

Jisung whines high in the back of his throat. “Friends left me,” he slurs. His lips jut out into a pout. “Mm, I’ll stay here instead.”

“You can’t—”

“So pretty.” He sighs and blinks up at Minho through heavy eyelids. Something deeply animalistic lodges itself between his ribs. “You’re so pretty, wanna stay with you.”

_God._

Minho is sure he’s never faced a greater challenge in all his life. He sees Hyunjin in his periphery, staring with guarded eyes. “Y-You can’t stay with me, Jisung,” he whispers.

Jisung’s arms are still stretched across the bar, and he leans to rest his head on one of them. “You want me to,” he murmurs. “Know you want me.”

Minho swallows. It’s divine agony. “I don’t.”

Jisung’s eyes flutter closed and a sleepy smile curls at the edges of his mouth. “You took… that boy.” His words are growing softer by the second. “Wasn’t better than me, was he? Mm, know you want me so bad.”

The animal lodged in Minho’s chest claws up the back of his throat. His fingers twitch at his sides, and it takes every ounce of his self-control to keep them there, to resist reaching for Jisung’s overheated skin. All he can do is bite out another _“you need to go home”_ before he turns away from the bar and pushes past Siyeon into the kitchen. Hyunjin is hot on his heels, slipping through the door before it can close, and he leans one hip against the counter.

“Dude.” He shakes his head and flashes Minho a sly grin. “You’re so fucked.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/excelgesis)


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